Software Factory is specialized form of Business Process Outsourcing. The client outsources his Software or Information Technology Department in full or in part. We at Mann-India™ have tailored this Software Factory model to suit Latin and South American market. Under this umbrella of Software Factory we have assembled a range of business offerings and service models. To name a few of them:
- On-Site
- Off-Shore
- Near Shore
- Managed offerings
- Consulting Services
Mann-India™’s service delivery model is based on the Software factory model of development. The Software factory model of development has the following key differentiators:
- Separate the Focus on vertical knowledge acquisition from technical (development) expertise
- Allow cross functional competence grow to have an ever growing pool of resources that can be deployed across verticals and project environments
- Economy of scale – ramp up scale to ensure massive availability of programming and consulting skill to drastically reduce turnaround times.
- Employ stringent scientific metrics collection processes across functional domains to increase efficiencies
- Robust and strong HR focus to ensure constant availability of resources for quick ramp up and retention
- Strong focus on onshore-offshore coordination and remote project management expertise to ensure efficient and powerful off shoring experiences
- HR processes ensure wide availability of skill sets to provide “one stop shop” solution
offering to large corporate customers. This approach allows large corporates to
partner with us and to outsource most of their strategic and non-strategic IT functions
and platform development/maintenance activities to us.
Advantages of such an approach :- Single vendor for most critical activities
- Dedicated account manager to coordinate activities and address customer requirements
- Inter project and inter team coordination issues – a thing of the past
- Substantial lowering of costs and possibility of long term commercial arrangements insulating the customer from the constant rise in services costs
- Dedicated workforce operating remotely with a strong local team to coordinate with the client resulting in quick turnaround times and better accountability
Enterprise Program Management
Successful program management is achieved through careful planning, understanding of current requirements and future business environments, managing resources that meet the requirements and mitigating any perceived risk.
We follow the Enterprise Program Management model, which provides a corporate-level unit that consolidates project management across the enterprise, and helps track factors like business benefits, investment risk, portfolio analysis and prioritization, and organizational capacity planning. The Mann-India™ Program Manager monitors project status, business benefits, risks and other issues on a daily basis. He / She continuously monitors the team performance and provides additional resources and support as required. Off shore issues are primarily escalated to the Program Manager who also develops the resource plan and detailed process documents. The Program Manager is the customer’s single point of contact. Offshore Program Management takes responsibility for documentation that needs to be developed for the offshore team and handles all sign offs.
Communication
Mann-India™ ensures frequent communication between the customer and the offshore team. This is facilitated by conference calls initiated by the offshore team to discuss issues on a daily basis. A steering committee is set up with senior representatives from the customer and Mann-India™ to continually review the progress of the Software factory execution right through various stages of BOT commencing from KT.
Status reports are emailed to the customer on a weekly and monthly basis. Quarterly review meetings are conducted to apprise team members and address broad issues with senior management. Weekly status calls between key managers from both sides are also held, to address any issues that may need to be escalated, and plan for the following week. The status reports typically cover:
- Work in the current phase
- Critical Issues
- Overall Status of all planned activities
- Summary of open issues
Day-to Day Project Management
Mann-India™ has demonstrated delivery capabilities and robust processes to ensure that project execution moves like a well-oiled machine. This is primarily driven by effective project management skills possessed by our line managers. Mann-India™ has staffed its Overseas Development Centers with strong delivery managers experienced in processes and technologies, across the product lines to ensure that the culture of innovation and timely deliveries is sustained across the ODC.
Escalation
Mann-India™ has a defined escalation mechanism, which focuses on three broad levels spanning across the organization structure enabling both robustness and scalability while providing transparency. There are three levels of escalation. Of these levels, the number of escalations would be more at the lowest level and this number would gradually decrease at higher levels as the nature of the issues change from operational to tactical and tactical to strategic level. The three levels are defined below:
Most companies neglect the ongoing governance and management of the service provider relationship and underestimate the time, money and people it takes to manage operations effectively. Ideally this includes establishing a dedicated team of people, on both ends, to ensure compliance and adherence to agreed-upon service levels.
The Mann-India™ Governance Model is highly segmented as it ensures high levels of transparency between the various entities involved. The entities include individuals’ right from the board of directors to operational staff members. The model has been developed keeping in mind the various processes and deep industry knowledge which Mann-India™ has leveraged over the years.
Mann-India™ currently uses the iplan enterprise management product for 100% project visibility with regard to project documentation, requirement management, effort management and defect tracking.
The Mann-India™ support and maintenance practice is highly skilled in the use of Remedy for SLA tracking functions.
With Remedy Service Level Agreements, our support staff can manage the entire range of service level agreement (SLA) processes, from defining SLAs and monitoring compliance, to collecting and analyzing performance data, addressing problem areas, and continually refining the services offered. Once implemented, Remedy Service Level Agreements also enables real-time, proactive SLA management to ensure that we meet or exceed expectations. As a result, we can keep IT service delivery closely aligned with business requirements and continually improve service quality.
- Cumulative time-based, availability, event-monitoring, and threshold-monitoring performance targets with periodic reviews measure SLA performance
- Performance targets track individual incidents and commitments over any time period, including multiple, recurring periodic reviews
- Customizable escalation processes let users select proactive milestones and actions to ensure that time commitments and service levels are met
- Constant performance monitoring through best-practice reports and predefined flash boards alerts managers that commitments may be missed
- SLA Catalog shows SLA bundles and provides price and other related information for sets of service levels our organization has to offer
Aggregated availability SLAs track the availability of all the assets and components tied to the individual SLA of a specific business service.
Mann-India™ has developed a very comprehensive six-step implementation methodology
and a rigorous process model to ensure that maximum attention is given at this stage
to ensure success. Mann-India™’s migration competency, process knowledge and
experience are major differentiating factors. A summary of generic migration process
for transitioning development and support process to our Software factory is given
below:
